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When I open my eyes, I'm still there. The cold stone walls. The eerie violet lights projecting on every corner with abyssal incantations. The defiled and corrupted Statue of the Seven sitting upturned on the side.
And you.
You're still here, amidst the ominous scenery, a sun surrounded by an ocean of darkness. Your image does not fit in here, next to obscure magic and cold steel from the armor of the Abyss Herald.
No, you don't belong here. Aether is a being of light, sweet and cheerful, and he belongs in a joyful world, filled with life and color, helping and taking care of everyone around him with the warmest of smiles. He belongs in a world in which, with only his laughter and a bad joke, I can't stay mad at him for giving his food away to some hungry animal.
He does not belong in this story of darkness and war.
I still remember all those nights under the stars of some uncanny universe, when I could rest easy because he kept watch, or all those times we played tag around entire worlds and had the loser pay for lunch that day. When you'd lend me your scarf after I caught a cold and you'd scold me for not bundling up, while the smell of home lulled me to sleep. Nothing bad could ever happen to me, because you were there to protect me. To look after me.
But not anymore.
Ever since you left, no place feels like home. Everywhere I go is cold and unfamiliar, just like those stoned ruins. I always need to be on the lookout, I can barely trust the people here. Not like I trusted you. Now I don't have anyone but myself, and I have no choice but to go from place to place, from city to city, in a world where I don't belong, where I can't afford to let down my guard when I stop to rest because you don't have my back anymore.
And, sometimes, even if I try to stay strong and bravely face every problem that arises, even the smallest things remind me that I am alone. That I'm weak, helpless, a speck of dust in comparison to the massive dangers of this universe.
That it had always been me and you against everything else.
And it's not anymore.
Not anymore, and every time I have to fight some demigod that threatens the life of this world, I never know if I'll make it out alive. If, by myself, I can be wiped out as easily as an insect. If someone in existence would even remember me, or if my name would fade away from the face of the planet forever.
"Lumine..."
Ever since you left, I am alone in the world.
It's been so long since someone last pronounced my true name...
Aether, I've been looking for you for so long, so desperately, that sometimes it would have been easier to let myself get killed by any creature.
The anguish is eating through my insides now more than ever. Why are you giving me such an icy gaze? Why does it look like you don't want to return by my side after all this time?
I can't keep going all alone...
"Come with me, Aether! Let's go home, please"
That's the only thing I can say, your stone cold eyes choking my lungs.
"Home..." your voice sounds distressed, nostalgic. "Yes, of course. Home is wherever we are together"
But...
I prepare myself emotionally and mentally, because this is the moment when, in spite of the immense sorrow growing in your eyes, even if you feel the same as I do, even if our souls are one... we can't be together again, like before, for forever. The air in that cave, damp, smells like tragedy and, once again, I feel myself becoming smaller and smaller until I'm microscopic. Nothing more than a grain of salt within this enormous scheme.
While you are huge, gigantic, and seeing you standing there, unmoved, chokes me more and more, and I close my eyes and squeeze my eyelids tight so that I can't see you walk away.
Except that, suddenly, your arms are embracing my back. Your summer scent washes over me and your big sun lights up my little moon.
I shudder.
Is this real?, I ask myself, and then it doesn't matter because you're here and I sink my face into your shining blonde braid and I shove myself onto your shoulders like you're going to fade away at any time forever again.
"I'm sorry for making you wait, Lumine" you say next to my ear, softly, like a secret, and now there's nobody else, there's nothing else. "I've finally found you. I'm not letting you go again"
I bury myself even deeper in your shoulder if that's possible, my heart at last feeling at home, in the right place, and I cry, and cry more and more because I don't have to be alone anymore. My brother caresses my hair and my body unwinds for the first in months, in years.
"I'll leave the Abyss Order and go with you. We can live in Mondstadt, or in Liyue if you'd prefer. We can get a house and go on adventures again, life before. Like always" I lift my gaze up to you, just to make sure there is nothing behind your words, that this is really genuine. "After all, this world is not so bad, right?"
But when I see you up close, your face is made of stone.
Suddenly I'm glued to the ground, wide-eyed, and with my heart on my throat I beg every fucking archon in this world to let me stay in your arms even just a second longer. I try to cling onto you with my fingernails, but a sudden twinge of pain on the palm of my hands shocks me back to reality, where my arms are empty and my hands are bleeding.
I wake up somewhere in this damned world and I scream, I scream with all my being because I'm out of tears until they burst out again, but I'm screaming and you can't hear me and nobody can hear me.